Month: August 2020

Keep the Home Fires Burning

| ullycatdesigns

Coming home to a house glowing warm with the smell of wood smoke in the air. What more could one want for the holidays? This card is the fourth house card in my series of “A Week of Christmas Houses” using Poppy Stamps 2020 Winter House Pop-Up Easel die set.

Blue house Slider-side

The card is a slight deviation from the die set’s easel card. This card uses a DIY slider base with the ribbon smoke and chimney as the pull tab. The house still is an easel card, but one that is operated by a slider tab. (A good video on DIY slider easel cards is by Maggi Harding.)

The house is cut from heavy card stock in a pale blue that has been in my stash from a card kit. The dark blue and pale yellow come from monotone color packs of cardstock by Recollections. Note that there is a pale-yellow outline layer of the house that provides the window inside color as well as framing the outside edge of the house. The card base is cut from heavy weight white cardstock and white glitter paper.

This card goes together easily by looking at the photos on the Poppy Stamps packaging. It does involve a lot of die cutting as there is only one die of each window type.  (I cut lots of the small pieces and store the extras in a tiny plastic bags that I keep with the die set.) To add depth to the porch and dormer windows I cut those pieces twice and glued together. The snowy pieces are cut from glitter paper and some of the window frames and siding have Nuvo Glitter Drops used thinly to give the illusion of melted snow.

I masked off the front door with sticky notes and used Salty Ocean Distress ink to darken the door and frame. A tiny drop of gold Nuvo Crystal Drops for the doorknob and a wreath cut with a Tonic Studios die set, complete the door.

Blue house Slider-welcome mat CU

The welcome mat was stamped and heat embossed using a stamp from a retired Stampin’ Up set. I used a blend of Ranger Black Sparkle and Recollections Ebony Detail Embossing powders that give the welcome mat a snowy sparkle. Once heat embossed, the mat was weathered using Antique Linen Distress Ink on a sponge dauber and cut out with the coordinating die. Foam tape was used to adhere the mat to the sliding tab.

The windows all have a piece of pale blue organza ribbon taped behind the window frames to give the shine of glass and the rosy glow comes from some shading with Fossilized Amber Distress Ink on the pale-yellow cardstock. The boy and woman decorating a Christmas trees that can be seen in the windows are from an older Tonic Studios Toy Emporium die set. Also, from the Tonic set is the outside fir tree and door wreath.

Blue house Slider-chimney CU

The slider tab was first embossed using a brick stencil (See video by The Paper Boutique on dry embossing with stencils) and then inked with Fired Brick Distress Ink. To make the mortar lines standout, I used a white gel pen. I cut the chimney extra-long so I could fold it over and strengthen the pub tab and so I could punch a hole to thread the ribbon through and secure it to the back side.

Blue house Slider-pull tab CU

The “Season’s Greetings” was stamped in red and is revealed when the chimney tab is pulled up. A personal message can be written below the “From our home to yours” heat embossed sentiment on the tab below the chimney.  These stamps are from the Winter Woodland stamp set by Sheena Douglas. (NOTE: I would recommend stamping the revealed sentiments before assembling the card. I tried to do mine after assembling the slider and it was impossible to get a good enough impression to heat embossing the Season’s Greetings using a stamping platform.)

IMG_8568

I used another stamp from the Winter Woodland set on the envelope flap to give a hint about the chimney pull on the card.

See the more the series of “A Week of Christmas Houses”

Day 1 – From Our House to Your House

Day 2 – Santa is Coming

Day 3 – A Baby is Coming

Day 4 – Keep the Home Fires Burning

Day 5 – Red Four Square

Day 6 – Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Day 7 – House Luminary

2019 – 12 Days of Christmas Trees

Supplies

Dies/Stencils

Stamps

Paper

Ink/Embossing Powder

Miscellaneous

A Baby is Coming

| ullycatdesigns

Baby is coming-Front envelope

Who doesn’t look forward to welcoming a new baby at Christmas? This card is the third house card in my series of “A Week of Christmas Houses” using Poppy Stamps 2020 Winter House Pop-Up Easel die set.

The house is cut from heavy card stock in a pale blue that has been in my stash from a card kit. The dark blue and pale yellow come from monotone color packs of cardstock by Recollections. Note that there is a pale-yellow outline layer of the house that provides the window inside color as well as framing the outside edge of the house. The card base is cut from heavy weight white cardstock.

This card goes together easily by looking at the photos on the Poppy Stamps packaging. It does involve a lot of die cutting as there is only one die of each window type.  (I cut lots of the small pieces and store the extras in a tiny plastic bags that I keep with the die set.) To add depth to the porch and dormer windows I cut those pieces twice and glued together. The snowy pieces are cut from glitter paper and some of the window frames and siding have Nuvo Glitter Drops used thinly to give the illusion of melted snow.

Baby is coming-Front open

I masked off the front door with sticky notes and used Salty Ocean Distress ink to darken the door and frame. A tiny drop of gold Nuvo Crystal Drops for the doorknob and a wreath cut with a Tonic Studios die set, complete the door.

The welcome mat, which acts as the easel stop, was stamped and heat embossed using a stamp from a retired Stampin’ Up set. I used a blend of Ranger Black Sparkle and Recollections Ebony Detail Embossing powders that give the welcome mat a snowy sparkle. Once heat embossed, the mat was weathered using Antique Linen Distress Ink on a sponge dauber and cut out with the coordinating die. Foam pads where used to adhere the mat to card and make it tall enough to act as an easel stop.

The windows all have a piece of pale blue organza ribbon taped behind the window frames to give the shine of glass and the rosy glow comes from some shading with Fossilized Amber Distress Ink on the pale-yellow cardstock. The rocking horse and woman decorating a Christmas tree that can be seen in the windows are from an older Tonic Studios Toy Emporium die set. Also from the Tonic set is the outside fir tree.

The ”Merry Christmas” is cut from heavy black cardstock glued down.  A personal message can be written behind the house

Baby is coming-Front envelope

I used two stamps on the envelope flap. I stamped Joy in green and then masked it with a sticky note and stamped the wishing you circle (which has a different sentiment in its center) in blue.

See the more the series of “A Week of Christmas Houses”

Day 1 – From Our House to Your House

Day 2 – Santa is Coming

Day 3 – A Baby is Coming

Day 4 – Keep the Home Fires Burning

Day 5 – Red Four Square

Day 6 – Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Day 7 – House Luminary

2019 – 12 Days of Christmas Trees

Supplies

Dies

Stamps

Paper

Ink/Embossing Powder

Miscellaneous

Santa Bauble

| ullycatdesigns

This Christmas card/ornament is a prototype for a shaker card. The car and Santa are part of the Spellbinder’s Sunday Drive collection and the pierced circles is also a Spellbinders nesting circle die set.

To make this bauble card, I cut a circular card base using the largest nesting die placing it just off the edge of a 6 ½ x 5 inches white card base.

I cut the series of pieced holed circles on white glitter cardstock and colored the front of the card base with silver metallic ink to show through the pierced holes. I also cut a piece of acetate between tissue interleaves so as not to have the cutting plates leave marks. Two strips of silver foiled cardstock ½ x 1 ¼ inches and a piece of thin silver wire 3 inches long were cut as well.

Next I cut a circular frame using the largest nesting die and the next size down circular die out of glitter cardstock. (I used a stitched circle die from another set to get a narrow border, but you could use the Spellbinders circle set and have a wide pierced border frame too.)

At this point I should have stamped and heat embossed the inside greeting before assembling the card. I like to use a stamping platform and the assembled card was too thick to get a good stamped impression. (My improvised solution was to stamp and heat emboss a tissue circle and glue it inside which is not as professional a finish as I would like.)

Previously I had cut and assembled a number of the Santa in the car and assembled them. (See Sunday Drive with Santa post.)

The whole process should be:

  1. Cut card base, acetate circle, nesting circles, silver foiled strip, all parts for Santa, reindeer and car.
  2. Stamp and heat emboss inside card sentiment.  (If in inking back of license plate with distress ink, clear heat emboss it now.)
  3. Add any colored ink or paper to go behind pierced circles to front of card base now.
  4. Assemble Santa, reindeer and car
  5. Glue down pierced circles
  6. Glue Santa and car to top of circle frame and place foam tape on back side of car
  7. Using a thin line of glue at outer edge of circle frame, glue acetate circle on top of circle frame and car
  8. On the back side of the circle frame place short, thin strips of foam tape with no gaps. This will hold your shaker contents from escaping. (I cut ¼ inch wide stripes of foam tape.)
  9. Place a small amount of craft snow in the middle of the front card base and then peel off backing paper on foam tape and adhere the acetate circle assembly to card base.
  10. Score on backside of foil strips every 1/8 inch and accordion fold both strips and flatten out again. Cut two strips of foam tape ¼ x 1 inch and adhere at top edges of foiled strips on back.
  11. Make a loop from the thin wire.
  12. Glue one of the foil strips to the top of the card base over fold so that foam tape is above the fold. Remove backing paper from foam tape on this piece.
  13. Place wire loop on foam tape. And add a drop of glue to secure wire.
  14. Remove backing paper on other foil strip foam tape and glue in place on backside of card.
  15. Tie ribbon through wire loop.

To finish the card, I stamped its envelope with a hint of what’s inside using a “Believe in the Magic of Christmas” sentiment in red ink.

Other Sunday Drive cards:

Sunday Drive Celebration

A Snowy Sunday Drive with Santa

Santa Bauble

Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Being Spooky

Driving into a Spooky Sunset

The Best is Yet to Come

Hoppy Spring!

SUPPLIES:

Dies

Stamps

  • Kaisercraft – Clear Stamps – Sentiments -Traditional – CS313

Papers

Inks/Watercolors

·  VersaMark – Watermark Stamp Pad

·  Recollections Pearl Embossing Powder – Sapphire

·  Recollections Detail Embossing Power- Clear

·  Stampin’ Up Classic Stamin’ Pad – Real Red

Miscellaneous

  • Foam tape
  • Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue/PVA Glue
  • American Crafts – Metallic Marker – M – Silver -62212
  • Blue Snowflake satin ribbon
  • Thin silver wire (I used 26 gauge round medium temper silver plated jewelry wire)
  • Craft snow (I got my package years ago from a hobby shop that sold materials for making model train scenes)

A Snowy Sunday Drive with Santa

| ullycatdesigns

I was so excited when I received the Sunday Drive die set from Spellbinders in May and now I am happy to show off one of the new holiday add-on sets for the Sunday Drive collection on this clean and simple slimline card.

The die sets I found easy to use following the images on the package but recommend having a pair of tweezers handy to glue and place the tiny taillights, box-ribbon-bow, and reindeer antlers. I also recommend having a small container or bag to put your die cut pieces into as you cut them out. They are quite easy to lose on your workspace or get dropped onto the floor. (I am still finding lost antlers on my crafting table.)

All the pieces were cut from scraps in my stash. I had to use my embossing mat to get good definition on the bummer piece cut on silver matte cardstock.

This was my first attempt at foiling multiple times the Spellbinders Twinkle Lights foiling plate on one card. Lessons I learned: Be patient and let the foiling plate cool down so you can place it exactly where you want it for the second and third pass. Don’t foil directly onto your slimline card unless you want the snow embossing effect inside your card too. Foil onto a panel you can adhere later.

The card base is an 8 inch x 9 inch piece of heavy white cardstock scored and folded long ways in half.

Inside the card is a green foiled Christmas tree which was one of test pieces I had foiled previously on a die cut rectangle scrap from another project.

Finishing of the card by stamping its envelope with some hints as to what’s inside using a vintage Disney stamp set.

Other Sunday Drive cards:

Sunday Drive Celebration

A Snowy Sunday Drive with Santa

Santa Bauble

Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Being Spooky

Driving into a Spooky Sunset

The Best is Yet to Come

Hoppy Spring!

SUPPLIES:

Stamps/Dies

Papers

Inks/Foils

Miscellaneous

Santa is Coming Tonight

| ullycatdesigns

Santa is coming-open-wide

It’s Christmas Eve and the candles are lit in the windows to welcome Santa. This is the second house card in my series of “A Week of Christmas Houses” using Poppy Stamps 2020 Winter House Pop-Up Easel die set.

The house goes together easily by looking at the photos on the Poppy Stamps packaging. It does involve a lot of die cutting as there is only one die of each window type.  (I cut lots of the small pieces and store the extras in a tiny plastic bags that I keep with the die set.) To add depth to the porch and dormer windows I cut those pieces twice and glued together. The snowy pieces are cut from glitter paper and some of the window frames and siding have Nuvo Glitter Drops used thinly to give the illusion of melted snow.

Santa is coming-Side view

Papers Used: The house is cut from Bazzill heavy card stock in a 2014 color of Gold Coin. The dark blue, red and pale yellow come from monotone color packs of cardstock by Recollections. Note that there is a dark blue outline layer of the house that provides the window inside color as well as framing the outside edge of the house.

Santa is coming-inking door

I masked off the front door with sticky notes and used Walnut Stain Distress ink to darken the door and frame. A tiny drop of gold Nuvo Crystal Drops for the doorknob (which wasn’t put on yet in the photo) and a wreath made from green scraps and a piece of red embroidery floss, complete the door. Greenery was cut from food boxes to get the thickness using a greenery die by Christina Griffiths and snipped into smaller pieces and glued to a wreath shape cut freehand.

Santa is coming-windows-CU

The windows all have tiny white candles cut from a thin white scrap and flames are cut from an orange envelope in my stash. I used the appropriately  named Candlelight – Spectrum Noir Sparkle Glitter Ink to put a dot of glow behind each candle on the dark blue layer.

Santa is coming-Candles

I stamped Santa Sleigh on white cardstock and colored with colored pencils. I cut a strip of clear plastic packaging to sandwich between Santa and another piece of white cardstock. Before I glued the strip, laid-out the position of the house, Santa and the plastic strip on a slimline envelope to make sure all would fit inside the envelope.

Santa is coming-laying out

Other than having to trim a bit off each side of the eaves on the white card base, all fit.

Santa is coming-triming card base

I made pencil marks to note where the plastic would go on the backsides of the dark blue layer and Santa. The plastic is sandwiched between the blue layer of the house and the white card base layers.

Santa is coming-Santa gluing

The welcome mat, which acts as the easel stop, was stamped and heat embossed using a stamp from a retired Stampin’ Up set. I used a blend of Ranger Black Sparkle and Recollections Ebony Detail Embossing powders that give the welcome mat a snowy sparkle. Once heat embossed, the mat was weathered using Antique Linen Distress Ink on a sponge dauber and cut out with the coordinating die. Foam pads where used to adhere the mat to card and make it tall enough to act as an easel stop.

The ”Merry Christmas” is cut from heavy black cardstock glued down.  A personal message can be written behind the house

The envelope was stamped in read on cream envelope using vintage Disney stamps.

Santa is coming-card-envelope

See the more the series of “A Week of Christmas Houses”

Day 1 – From Our House to Your House

Day 2 – Santa is Coming

Day 3 – A Baby is Coming

Day 4 – Keep the Home Fires Burning

Day 5 – Red Four Square

Day 6 – Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Day 7 – House Luminary

2019 – 12 Days of Christmas Trees

Supplies

Dies

Stamps

Paper

Ink/Embossing Powder

Miscellaneous

From Our House to Your House

| ullycatdesigns

Snowy house -house CU

It’s a cold and blustery day where snow is covering everything. You’ve walked to your neighbor’s house down the lane to drop off a bit of Christmas cheer and now you’re walking back to your home all aglow in the afternoon sun. How lovely and welcoming it looks with its bright paint underneath all the snow.

This is the feeling I hope the recipient of this card will have when they open and display the card.

Snowy house -front

This is the first house card in my series of “A Week of Christmas Houses” using Poppy Stamps 2020 Winter House Pop-Up Easel die set.

The card goes together easily by looking at the photos on the Poppy Stamps packaging. It does involve a lot of die cutting as there is only one die of each window type.  (I cut lots of the small pieces and store the extras in a tiny plastic bags that I keep with the die set.) To add depth to the porch and dormer windows I cut those pieces twice and glued together. The snowy pieces are cut from glitter paper and some of the window frames and siding have Nuvo Glitter Drops used thinly to give the illusion of melted snow.

Snowy house -easel

I masked off the front door with sticky notes and used Walnut Stain Distress ink to darken the door and frame. A tiny drop of gold Nuvo Crystal Drops for the doorknob and a wreath made from green scraps and a piece of red embroidery floss, complete the door. Greenery was cut from food boxes to get the thickness using a greenery die by Christina Griffiths and snipped into smaller pieces and glued to a wreath shape cut freehand.

Snowy house -door CU

The welcome mat, which acts as the easel stop, was stamped and heat embossed using a stamp from a retired Stampin’ Up set. Once heat embossed, it was weathered using Antique Linen Distress Ink on a sponge dauber.

The windows all have a piece of peach organza ribbon taped behind the window frames to give the shine of glass and the rosy glow of sunlight.

The ”Merry Christmas” is cut from heavy black cardstock glued down.  A personal message can be written behind the house.

Snowy house -inside

The house is cut from Bazzill heavy card stock in a 2014 color of Gold Coin. The red and pale yellow come from monotone color packs of cardstock by Recollections. Note that there is a pale-yellow outline layer of the house that provides the window inside color as well as framing the outside edge of the house.

See the more the series of “A Week of Christmas Houses”

Day 1 – From Our House to Your House

Day 2 – Santa is Coming

Day 3 – A Baby is Coming

Day 4 – Keep the Home Fires Burning

Day 5 – Red Four Square

Day 6 – Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Day 7 – House Luminary

2019 – 12 Days of Christmas Trees

Supplies

Dies

Stamps

  • Stampin’ Up – At Home with You – stamps & die set 143681 (Retired)

Paper

Ink/Embossing Powder

Miscellaneous

Snowy Forest Day

| ullycatdesigns

It’s a snowy day as you walk through the woods of white birch trees and here the red cardinals singing their sweet song, and then he appears. The majestic stag, who quietly walks to the ridge and surveys his kingdom. Finally, you come to a small fir tree that has been decorated for Christmas. You know this is your destination and the faint tune of “We wish you a Merry Christmas” hums through your head.

This is the story I hope the recipients of this card have when they open the card.

Stag XMAS-front

I fell in love with the Creative Expressions Paper Panda Forest Stag die the first time I saw it and designed my card around this large die creating a 5 ½ x 8 ½ inches card using two pieces of heavy white cardstock. I went through my dies to find a large enough opening to go behind the stag that still left a sufficient border to keep the card sturdy. I used one from the Crafters Essentials I by Kat Scrappiness.

Having scored and folded both pieces of 8 ½ x 11 inch white cardstock in half, knew I had to cut the rectangular aperture in three of the four panels. Laying out how I wanted the front of the card to look with my dies, I cut two of the panels at the same time by putting the sheet folded in-half through the die cutting machine.  Once the front and middle were cut, I laid-out how the second folded sheet of cardstock would overlap on the middle panel and traced the aperture opening onto the overlap panel. I cut this aperture with the cardstock fully open so a wide format die cutting machine was needed.

Stag XMAS-Extended wide

I didn’t have any birch trees long enough to fill the apertures so I scoured my favorite on-line crafting stores and found on my favorite discount die store Dies R Us the Impression Obsession birch trees with the tiny cardinal dies. I cut two sets of trees out from the same white cardstock as the card base. I cut two sets of cardinals (front and back) from red scrap cardstock.

To make the stag, I cut the shape three times from brown cardstock. The last of the three stags was cut from brown cardstock covered on one side with double-sided adhesive and then when the backing paper on the adhesive was pulled off I laid the piece on scrap paper and shook ultra-fine glitter over the adhesive to ‘frost” the stag much the same way you would cover an inked image to be heat embossed. The excess glitter should stay on the scrap paper so it can be put back into its storage container. Once glittered, I glued the three stag shapes together off setting, the glittered one on top to create a slight shadow.

Stag XMAS-front-CU

Being new to heat foiling, I practiced some on scrapes before using the Christmas tree foiling plate on my good paper. The Glimmer Foiling System by Spellbinders is easy to use if you watch a lot of videos on how to use the system and follow the instructions faithful. I do not recommend doing heat foiling when you are tired or in a hurry, that’s when mistakes happen.  Because the card is a large size, I had to foil the tree through the cut aperture to fit it through my die cutting machine. The season’s greetings sentiment is foiled in silver and die cut out using a dotted sentiment banner die that comes in the same Spellbinders Holiday Sentiments set. I placed scrap red cardstock behind the dots before gluing the banner in place.

Stag XMAS-inside back

Once all the elements had been cut and foiled, the assembly began with laying out how the layers would look when the card was closed. Four birch trees were glued behind the stag then the four birch trees were glued to backside of the middle panel. Then the two middle panels were glued together sandwiching the trees between them. Then the stag was glued to the front with the antlers glued to the trees.  A cardinal was laid-out on each of the tree panels and each glued down with its matching back piece glued on the back side of the trees. The “Season’s Greeting” banner was glued on the front to anchor the stag.

Stag XMAS-inside middle

Supplies

Dies & Glimmer Foil Plates

Paper

Foil

Miscellaneous

Sue Small-Kreider ©2020

See the video at https://spark.adobe.com/video/oYtdMGCXyVNe9